Other (effortless) ways to help the world

[Guest]

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[MichelleFromAdelaide]

Knowing that Kiva Friends are a charitable bunch, here is a list of other EFFORTLESS ways you can help do your bit for the world (and maybe even wean yourself off your Kiva addictions):

www.freerice.org - online vocabulary game that donates 20 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program for each correct answer.

www.ripple.org - a Google-powered search engine also featuring "click for donation" buttons, donating funds to 4 charities (including the Grameen Foundation)

www.goodsearch.org - a Yahoo-powered search engine which donates advertiser revenue to your nominated charity (yes, Kiva is up there)

www.floxter.com - solve simple tasks online to receive payment, which you can donate to nominated charities

www.worldcommunitygrid.org (or other "distributed computing" projects) - allow your computer to contribute its unused processing power to perform research for projects tackling AIDS, cancer and more

www.thehungersite.com - click daily to donate food through sponsor advertising to Mercy Corps and America's Second Harvest (also, click on partner sites addressing Breast Cancer, Education and more)

www.freewebs.com/clickforcharity/index.htm - a comprehensive list of charity sites offering a "click for donation" service

I hope that keeps you occupied for a while! 

[TheTatiana]

I love freerice!  They need some new words and higher levels, though.  Once you do it for long enough, you eventually learn all the words they have, and it gets to be tedious.  I wonder how much rice has been donated altogether?

[Henry]

They need some new words and higher levels

Girl - you scare me!      

Henry
Product of 1978 Public School System in Alabama

[Wood Fairy Glenda]

Love it, Henry! 

[KivanSteven]

lol, if I had a grain of rice for every time Henry was responsible for my laugh of the day, I wouldnt need to play on freerice.

[TheTatiana]

Haha!  Henry, I are too!  (a product of Alabama public schools, I mean -- 1976 for me)  But also I guess I read too much, plus I get obsessed with things like that and keep at them.  I gradually rose from the mid 40s up to level 50 over the course of several days.  It is fun!  I notice that they've doubled the rice grains per correct word to 20 now.  That makes it even better.  I think they should have a system where the higher the level, the more grains per word you earn, which would make it even more addictive.  =)  I'm not surprised if other people aren't as OCD about things like this as me, or if they waste far less time on the computer. 

[Steff]

I just spent over an hour playing freerice for the first time and got to level 48.  You would think I had no life in the rw...it is very addicting!
Steff

[Tatiana]

This Tatiana is not nearly as accomplished as Thetatiana in the freericegame, but I'm having a lot of fun doing it anyway.

A similar game is this: http://apps.facebook.com/morerice/faq

You can donate rice by answering math questions. They start very simple but after a while the get more difficult to answer without paper.

The annoying thing is that you have to register first, and they keep asking you to invite your friends.

[KivanSteven]

Thanks Tatiana...also count on us getting the two of you confused quite often...Im apologizing beforehand.

[DanaLi]

there is a totals page on freerice that updates every day(about). Right now the total is 12,369,264,510 .

That's a lot of rice